The Subspace Emissary was one of the more heavily anticipated new features in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Essentially taking the Adventure mode of Melee and expanding it into a full-blown story mode, it featured classic-style beat-em-up action, boss fights, RPG-elements by upgrading your character's powers with stickers, and finally some truly epic cut scenes that tell the game's expansive story. But in spite of all that, did the Subspace Emissary truly succeed? Did it live up to its hype, or did it fall flat on its face? Allow me to explore this issue further, and I'll address some of the mode's strengths and weaknesses before finally giving my assessment on the Subspace Emissary as a whole.

PROS

First and foremost, the primary reason why anyone will play this mode (besides unlocking characters) will be experience a one-of-a-kind adventure that features so many of Nintendo's mascot characters, the likes of which has never been seen before. The story itself isn't anything worthwhile, but just combining these characters together into such bizarre and unique situations provides opportunities for epic moments and epic laughs. The Subspace Emissary delivers on both these levels, and watching the beautifully animated cut scenes will almost certainly have any Nintendo fan smiling from ear to ear.

Subspace's other biggest strength is that it plays almost exactly like the classic 2-D beat-em-up games of years' past. If you enjoy that kind of game, you'll love the Subspace Emissary, and it's nice to see this genre of game getting more representation in this day and age, especially in a high-profile game like Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Despite being built around the normal mechanics of Smash Bros, the Subspace Emissary still plays extremely well, and you won't find many flaws gameplay-wise.

The Subspace Emissary can also be surprisingly deep. There's plenty to go back and collect for those completionists who want to get 100%, and for those who want to challenge the higher difficulties, the mode has a number of those as well. For those of you who think the higher difficulties are a bit too much of a challenge, the well-implemented sticker system can help considerably, as upgrading your character and their powers will enable you to breeze through with a bit less trouble - although you still need to be good. However, at 8-10 hours for a first-time run through (depending on the initial level of difficulty), the Subspace Emissary still offers a complete experience even if you only play once. And all this is on top of the pre-existing fighting game.

CONS

Despite the many positives of the Subspace Emissary, there are still a few negatives that hold it back somewhat. Most notably of these, I feel, was the poorly implemented co-operative play. While being able to transverse the Subspace Emissary with a friend is still fun, it could have been handled much better than it was. The main problem is that the game's camera focuses solely on player one; this means is that player one scrolls too far to the left and player two gets stuck off screen, that person could be accidentally killed because they can no longer see what they're doing. While the game tries to prevent this by automatically warping player two back to player one if the first player scrolls too far, this doesn't always prevent such frustrating deaths.

Also frustrating was an area at the very end of the Subspace Emissary, called the Great Maze. While up until this point the game remains fun and fresh, it comes to a bit of a stall once you're forced to complete this maze. The Great Maze has you re-completely some of the Emissary's previous locations in order to defeat every character in the game, as well as to re-beat all the bosses that you previously fought. Thankfully the Great Maze has a map that notes the location of everyone you need to beat, but it can still be a pain just getting to them, and in the end this part of the game feels like little more than a pointless endeavor designed to merely prolong the length of the game. It's challenging, for sure, but not very fun.

Also a tad disappointing is that the Subspace Emissary didn't include more areas and characters based off of the respective Nintendo franchises represented in the game. While there are the occassional goombas and koopa troopas roaming around, most enemies you face are completely original (and somewhat uninspired). The areas in the game are also brand new and only bare minor resemblences to Nintendo locations - you won't find the Mushroom Kingdom or Hyrule here. Still, it's just a minor gripe, and doesn't take away from the experience too much.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Subspace Emissary isn't perfect, that's for sure. It has a few nagging flaws, some questionable design decisions, and this brand new adventure mode isn't likely to appeal to everyone. Still, I enjoyed the heck out of it, and I'm sure many of you did as well. It was a very fun and unique experience that we aren't likely to see again anytime soon, and it also brought about a lot of memorable moments that most of us had ever only envisioned in our dreams. For what can merely be seen as an additional mode that's included on top of an already deep and fun fighting game, the Subspace Emissary turned out exceptionally well. Here's to hoping this idea is further refined for any future Super Smash Bros titles.

SSE was the second-biggest disappointment in Brawl (the god-awful online being the first). Melee's Adventure mode was fantastic, because it took you through various Nintendo worlds, with the appropriate enemies and cutscenes. SSE had generic locations and enemies, and the fan-fiction cutscenes were just silly, and not in a funny or epic way either. Not to mention the cutscenes were horrible compressed.

I didn't really care for the SSE, the cutscenes were awesome though. I do agree that the characters were all too easy to unlock. I kinda understand why SSE isn't that awesome at all. Let's say I want to sell this SSBB, well SSE has all these pretty cutscenes...I think the SSE is merely a pretty version of adventure mode, and wasn't intended to be super awesome. Everyone knows that Nintendo could of done better, but cmon, have you SEEN all there is to do in SSBB?! Like a bazillion things. And they don't have all of the time in the world to work on the SSE.
Super Smash is mainly known for it's awesome and fun multiplayer, which is the CORE of Smash. They just tacked on a bunch of things to make it a bigger package, the simple stage builder, stickers, SSE, etc.

For the Emissary, I was expecting more of a Kingdom Hearts thing.
It would have been cool to have to go through the different worlds of Nintendo. Another smaller thing I was disappointed about was that Kirby's copy move didn't do anything to the enemies of the Emissary.And also that Sonic didn't appear until the last boss. But all in all the Emissary was good. It was so much better than just getting another plain old adventure mode. And I can't complain if you get every character except three by going through it just once. :]

i agree with most everything said in this article. i had a good time with the sse. the only thing i don't agree with was that i actually liked the great maze at the end and i liked the story.

the maze was a nice change from the otherwise completely linear levels in the game. it actually took a little bit of thought to get through. not a lot but still more than the rest of it. the 2 player could get frustrating but it was still really fun. i enjoyed playing with a friend more actually. and the cut scenes were awesome and told a goo story, especially considering the fact that, in true nintendo fashion, no one spoke a word. and i think people would have complained if they did speak.

anyway, it's probably not for everyone, but you can't tell me it wasn't awesome to watch a group of iconic characters flew their respective ships and attacked ganon and bowser on that huge city/gun thing. that was just awesome.

Throughout I thought it had that annoying feeling of repetitiveness. But I felt like maybe I wasn't giving it enough of a chance. Until I came to The Great Maze at least...

While interesting to see some original (albeit often bizzare) creatures as the majority of the enemies, I felt them largely inconsistent with their designs. I would have preferred at least some more consistency or more well known enemies suited to the environment. The story was meh but at least it gave some sort of general reason to why you were fighting as opposed to Melee's Adventure Mode.

Despite the fact that I will likely not ever play the Subspace Emissary ever again save for collecting the boss trophies and what not, I would say overall that it is a huge improvement. If the same level of improvement is achieved next time I would say that were on track to a worth while adventure.

I thought that SSE was fairly enjoyable, and was a good place to test out new characters, and was also something fresh besides the usual classic mode. I thought the graphics were well done, and some scenes were truly awesome. In particular, the battle between Marth and Metaknight was one of my personal favorites. One thing I disliked, though, was how simple SSE made it to unlock all the characters. I remember spending days on end playing Melee trying to rack up enough hours to fight Mewtwo (eventually I caved in and just left the damn thing on overnight) but the Story mode just made it simple and without challenge. Sure, there were some fights that were difficult, but for the most part it made unlocking the characters far too easy and simple. Also, sometimes it was difficult to exactly understand the plot. Perhaps subtitles at the bottom explaining what was going on occasionally would have helped this.
Besides that, I have no complaints. It was a new, and for the most part enjoyable. I doubt I'll play through it again, as battling online consumes me now, but I had a good time with it.

im replying to an old post i knwo, but now if you go to the dojo and go to one of the most recent updates it explains the whole story what wasup with rob being the acient minister, why they have control of metaknights ship, everything that you wanted to know just go the the dojo

The Subspace Emissary was a grand leap forward compared to the Adventure Mode in Melee. But of course a game that is known more so for its multiplayer has a stronger chance for it to be lacking in it's single player mode. I'll agree with the lack of representation of players home fields, more so the more recognizable ones, like the mentioned Mushroom Kingdom. I think that a lot wasn't included to possibly be fair to all characters, and maybe give them some weird neutral area where it was more likely they'd meet up with each other. All in all, it really boils down if you like that style of Adventure Mode. It was a different experience, and when has change turned out bad for a company?
(Dreamcast that's when....unfortunately....)